Tag: Digital video recorders

The fact the commercials feature a countdown clock is tacit acknowledgment this isn’t the optimum way.

While we were away Helaine recorded Modern Family. As it turned out one episode aired while there was breaking news. The ‘dumb’ DVR recorded at the appointed time and shut down before the show was over. Ugh!

“I can find it on the Internet,” Helaine said. And she did.

The Internet stream features commercials. I understand that. You’ve got to pay for the show somehow. There are actually fewer commercials on the Internet version than the air version. They’re just more invasive!

I’m not sure why, but there’s a difference between interrupting a broadcast where the TV is halfway across the room and interrupting the more personal webcast where the commercials are in your lap and where you feel trapped by them! Whatever it is 30, 60 or 70 seconds on the laptop was a lot worse than 2:30 on the TV.

The commercials are flanked by a countdown clock. Isn’t that tacit acknowledgment they know we’re upset?

On top of that any time I tried to move the timeline (we were after all trying to pick up a show we started watching on the DVR) it triggered more commercials!

I’m like the guys who built hot rods in the 50s and 60s–just with computers. That’s why I’m rebuilding something that worked fine, but could be coaxed to work finer.

“You and the penguin aren’t getting along.” It was Helaine. “I can tell.” She’s psychic about these things.

The penguin is ‘Fox housetalk’ for Linux, a computer operating system that’s sparsely used by folks at home. It is atop Linux that MythTV, my DVR software sits.

I know. This is really geeky. It’s my fun… when the penguin and I are speaking.

It hasn’t been good this weekend. Computers aren’t suppose to give you a different answer when doing the same thing multiple times. This Ubuntu Linux install did.

I’m a scrounger. I’m like the guys who built hot rods in the 50s and 60s–just with computers. That’s why I’m rebuilding something that worked fine, but could be coaxed to work finer.

I’m in the midst of rebuilding my DVR. It moved into a faster box, got a software update and acquired a digital tuner. I should be able to record non-scrambled high def shows in high def.

The problem is none of the digital station recording works! When it’s time to scan for channels it merely rolls through the dial without locking onto one. I can still record ‘old fashioned’ TV, but that’s not the point.

Others have had this problem and solved it. I will too.

At the moment it’s driving me a little crazy.

Meanwhile this newly assembled machine means two very old and now gutted computers will be thrown out. Though both are worthless the act itself pains me. It seems so wrong. It would be like throwing out wire or cable. You just don’t.

Working on computers is a lot simpler than it sounds. Cards only plug in where they’re supposed to plug in. I’ve yet to fry one!

You know the guys who used to have cars up on blocks customizing and tweaking them until they performed exactly as the tinkerer wished? I’m that tinkerer, except with computers. That probably explains why last night when Helaine went to bed I went to work on an old PC–my DVR.

A few months ago I started recording my shows on the Comcast DVR we rent. The homebrew DVR was powered down. What I discovered was viewing video on the laptop while I’m doing other things is much more satisfying. That’s what brought this rebuild.

First an admission. Working on computers is a lot simpler than it sounds. Cards only plug in where they’re supposed to plug in. I’ve yet to fry one!

This computer was state-of-the-art years ago. It’s a P4 with 512mb RAM and a 150 gb hard drive. Even if you don’t recognize the stats, just think slow.

Luckily as a DVR it’s just fine. The secret here is the video capture cards which themselves contain a small computer specifically made to manipulate video. They do most of the heavy lifting. My two PVR-150s are the only pieces bought especially for a DVR. Together they cost around $100.

The standard program for this type of thing is MythTV. It’s an free open source program which runs on Linux. I chose to install Mythbuntu which combines MythTV and Ubuntu Linux in one distribution. I downloaded an iso file and burned it to a CD.

Surprisingly the installation went very slowly–over two hours. Then came the real tough part, configuring.

MythTV is meant to run on many different types of hardware so it needs to be custom configured. Unfortunately, as a free project put together by volunteers the documentation is a little lacking and the program’s interface non-intuitive. It took a while to understand exactly what was needed.

By 4:00 AM the box was built and everything was working. I downloaded the next fourteen days of TV listings into a MySQL database and selected a few shows to record.

This version of MythTV has some rudimentary streaming, but mostly I watch the video on my other computers using MythTV Player, another freeware program. Perfect!

What is tantalizing now is the thought of streaming my DVR to my iPhone. There are a few ways written but they all seem too complex. I’ll keep looking.

I’m also thinking of buying one more TV tuner card. This would be an ATSC, QAM card for recording HDTV digital cable (only the few unscrambled channels, unfortunately).